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How close did Israel just come to its own Cuban Missile Crisis?

Jonathan Schanzer, a former counter-terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said the real agenda behind Israel’s assault last month on Hamas’ munitions stockpiles and smuggling tunnels was not simply to end the daily barrage of relatively primitive rockets that have become part of daily life in Israel. The real mission was to eliminate as many as 100 Iranian-built Fajr5 missiles – with the power to reach Tel Aviv – that had been sneaked into Gaza through Egypt. The Obama administration knew in advance of the operation and agreed that the missiles, built in a Sudanese factory, had to be neutralized to protect millions of Israeli citizens who were now within range of the deadly Iranian weapons, according to Schanzer.

“The U.S. was fully aware of what was going to come in Gaza,” Schanzer, now vice president of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told FoxNews.com. “They said nothing for the first few days of the operation; there was dead silence from [Obama].”

Israel essentially achieved its main aims within the first few days, said Schanzer, noting that Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., said as much when he remarked on Day Three of the campaign: “We have run out of good targets.”

Blowback

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Speaking of the Cuban Missile Crisis: I just read last week that Khrushchev had a plan to give to Castro the 100 nuclear warheads that we didn’t know they had placed in Cuba. We thought that the warheads for the ballistic missiles hadn’t been transported yet. But we didn’t know about the tactical nuclear weapons.

So, Khrushchev was worried about a break in Cuban/Soviet relations since he agreed with JFK to remove the missiles without consulting Castro. Castro was furious.

Fortunately, the Soviet representative (Anastas Mikoyan) sent to negotiate the arrangement rescinded the deal on his own. He told Castro that it would illegal under Soviet law to give him the weapons.

And you know what’s truly laughable? That sad excuse for a ‘nation’ doesn’t even have enough native-born people who have the faintest idea of how to make nutritious, sterile baby formula to warrant construction of such a factory.

They’ve been too busy shooting AK47s and RPGs at each other for the last few decades – after they graduated from spears and arrows – to even get around to promoting basic literacy.